Microfluidic systems provide low cost, highly integrated platforms for carrying out biochemical and chemical tasks such as chemical transport and biochemical analysis in compact, automated, and sometimes portable fashion. Microfluidic systems may contain components to transport biochemical fluids, to store fluids, biological cells, or particles, and/or to facilitate reaction between fluids and chemical substances. As a non-limiting example, microfluidic systems may be used for blood sampling, DNA hybridization tests, protein-enzyme reaction, drug discovery, and combinatorial chemistry. Microfluidic systems have the potential to realize point-of-care detection and dramatically increase the speed of biochemical screening and diagnosis.
A microfluidic system may contain a complete micro-laboratory integrated on a chip, analogous to an integrated circuit, for fluid and chemical handling, storage, and reaction functionalities. Portability can be provided through miniaturization, low cost through integration, and simplicity of operation through automation. Integration of a laboratory on a chip enables parallel, and thus more efficient, discovery. Fast, high throughput medical diagnosis and drug discovery are enabled with such chips. Continuous environmental monitoring is possible for civilian, industrial, and military interest.
However, existing microfluidic systems have high development cost and development time, representing a significant barrier to commercialization of integrated microfluidic devices. A typical microfluidic chip may contain a variety of process components. For each unique chip that performs a particular task, many such microfluidic components must be integrated onto the chip, and a new set of mask layout and prototyping and fabrication processes must be performed. Fabrication of particular microfluidic chips can require expertise in, among other things, chip fabrication technology, material, biological and/or chemical reaction, and fluid mechanics. This significantly adds to the development time and cost of a chip.
Furthermore, a chip designed for a particular process cannot be easily modified, optimized, or otherwise configured for other processes. Existing microfluidic chips are thus inflexible in terms of their functionality. To perform even simple modifications to a microfluidic process, the chip must be redesigned, and a new set of mask layout and fabrication processes must be performed. These and other factors significantly increase the development time and cost of the chip, thus decreasing the availability and adoption of such chips in the art, and negating their many advantages.